James Peebles
Dept. Physics Joseph Henry Lab., Princeton Univ. (Princeton, New Jersey, Etats-Unis d'Amérique)
Amphithéâtre Henri Mineur, Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris
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| « Lessons from the Past for the Future of Cosmology » |
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James Peebles |
| We learn from experience. Critical steps and missteps on the path to the now well-established LCDM cosmology offer lessons for considerations of today's open questions. Edifying examples include the debates over homogeneous or fractal world models, a Steady State or a hot Big Bang, and the firmly held but evolving opinions of space curvature, Einstein's cosmological constant, and biasing. These examples may inform our thinking about present issues: is LCDM the final theory for observational cosmology or only the simplest presently acceptable approximation? What are the places in physics for dark matter and dark energy? Is galaxy formation theory predictive rather than still adjusting to the flow of observational advances? Do inflation and the multiverse require adjustments of our standards of evidence in science? But of course the main lesson from the history of modern cosmology is that we are not likely to have anticipated the most profound developments in the cosmology to come. |
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vendredi 11 octobre 2013 - 11:00 Amphithéâtre Henri Mineur, Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris |
| Page web du séminaire / Seminar's webpage |